GPS 32'00"48.00"N 80'52'59.50"W

1 OLD TYBEE ROAD-HWY 80 TYBEE ISLAND, GA. 31328

  912-786-5554

 

Native American Indians were the first to set foot on Tybee Island. They gave it it's name which means 'salt'.

Because of it's strategic location at the mouth of the Savannah River, General James Oglethorpe, the founding father of Georgia, had a lighthouse built in 1736 to help protect the Port of Savannah against a possible attack. The original lighthouse was washed away in a hurricane in the early 1800's and was rebuilt for the fourth time in 1866 and still stands today.

Georgia's original charter had an anti-slavery provision based on General Oglethorpe's oppostion to that "peculiar" institution.  But Georgia's planters, seeing the profits made from the use of slave labor by their South Carolina plantation neighbors, over-ruled Oglethorpe's wishes and in 1749 repealed this decision and passed an act permitting the establishment of slavery in the young colony.

This act ordered the erection of a "lazaretto", or quarantine station, on Tybee Island located on the extreme western tip at the mouth of what was to become Lazaretto Creek.

Several hospital buildings were erected to treat sick voyagers and those who died were buried in unmarked graves. The Lazaretto was in continuous use until 1785 when the buildings fell into dis-repair and a new station was built on Cockspur Island.

Sunrise at Tybee Island Pier